DUNEDIN, Fla. — This job swap would be a breeze for most players. For Mark Buehrle, it has been a mess.

The veteran left-hander has ascended from the last-place Miami Marlins to the Toronto Blue Jays, whom forecasters suddenly insist should do no worse than make the playoffs. He joins a rotation touted as one of the best in baseball. He is among friends, since the trade that brought him to Toronto also included three Marlins teammates.

John Gibbons is upbeat by nature. He does not easily do pessimism. And make no mistake, he loves the dream team Alex Anthopoulos has handed him.

But Gibbons has a message for giddy fans who figure the Toronto Blue Jays will roll out of bed and win the World Series this year: behold the Los Angeles Dodgers of 2012.

“There have been teams with a ton of talent that underachieve,” he said in a recent interview at his home in San Antonio. “Everybody asks what happened. Everybody expected L.A. to take off when they picked up those guys last year — Hanley Ramirez, Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez. ‘We got these guys now, we’ll win this thing.’ It doesn’t happen that way. They didn’t even make it [to the playoffs].”

But he left Miami in anger. Management lied when it promised not to trade him, he says. And as he makes his debut as a Blue Jay, he will live alone in Toronto, leaving his family and their beloved dogs behind in St. Louis.

The reason: Ontario has banned pit bulls, one of which — a Staffordshire terrier-bulldog mix named Slater — is a treasured member of the Buehrle family.

“I don’t want to make it a big story all year,” Buehrle said Wednesday, addressing the subject for the first time since reporting to spring training. “It does suck that my family’s not going to be there [in Toronto], but guys go through it, guys deal with it. We’re going to make it work.”

His family will stay at their primary home in St. Louis during the season and visit Toronto from time to time. The Buehrles also have a home in a Miami suburb, where they settled last summer because the city proper also has banned pit bulls. They found that out shortly after Buehrle signed a four-year, US$54-million free-agent contract with the Marlins.

This will be the first time in Buehrle’s career that he and his family will have lived apart during the season. He and wife Jamie — an ardent activist against pit-bull bans — have a son, 5, and a daughter, 3.

“At the beginning it was tough to realize the family wasn’t going to be [together],” Buehrle said.

“The biggest thing is we’re trying to bring awareness to the breed ban. Some families aren’t as fortunate as we are to maintain two houses and live away.”

As he and Jamie pondered what to do, advice varied. They could leave their four dogs — Slater and three vizslas — with a caretaker for the summer. They could live in Buffalo and Buehrle could commute to work. They could bring their dogs to Ontario, take their chances, and use their considerable resources to fight the ban in court if they were prosecuted.

The biggest thing is we’re trying to bring awareness to the breed ban. Some families aren’t as fortunate as we are to maintain two houses and live away

“Being a responsible pet owner, you can’t just dump your dog on somebody else or take a chance of breaking a law and taking him up there [to Ontario],” Buehrle said.

“We’ve had people say, ‘Oh, you can bring him up here and knowing you have money, no one is going take your dog because they know you’re going to fight against it.’ But the thing is, Slater will have to sit in a cage until that court date gets there. It could be two weeks or it could be three months.

“People who don’t own dogs are not going to understand that you’re leaving your family, your kids, behind over a dog. We just feel that all the training we’ve done with our dogs, it’s better they stay with my wife.”

The Buehrles adopted Slater from a shelter where he was scheduled for euthanasia two years ago. Jamie has an uncommon love for dogs, but when she told her husband about finding Slater, he had never heard her wax so enthusiastic about any animal before. Bring him home, he said.

Slater is the antithesis of the pit-bull stereotype, Buehrle insisted.

“He’s awesome with our kids,” he said. “He’s awesome when we have parties at our house and kids run in and ask where Slater is. Every kid wants to go right to him.”

If a pit-bill turns vicious, blame the owner, he said.

“If you’re going to tie your dog up out back and treat it bad, it’s going to treat you bad right back. If you tie up any dog and don’t show them love and abuse them or don’t show them attention, I think any dog is going to be aggressive and have bad behaviour.”

I wasn’t too happy at the time and [am] still not too happy with those people down there, obviously being lied to. It’s in the past and I’m looking to move forward

As for his bitterness toward management’s salary dump in Miami, Buehrle agreed that he took a chance when he agreed to a contract without a no-trade clause. The Marlins do not offer no-trade clauses, but Buehrle says they promised he would not be traded.

“I don’t want to talk too much on it,” he said. “I wasn’t too happy at the time and [am] still not too happy with those people down there, obviously being lied to. It’s in the past and I’m looking to move forward.”

On his way from Miami to Toronto, Buehrle has felt lingering frustration over that broken promise as well as a statute that makes his dog an outlaw. Ironically, when he is on the mound, he has always been able to wipe the slate clean after each pitch and every start, no matter the result, he says.

“I’m pretty laid back and don’t let stuff bother me,” he said. “I like to have fun on the mound. I’m out there laughing. Good start, bad start, I just throw it out the window and get ready for my next one.”

That attitude has served him well. He has pitched 200-plus innings in 12 straight seasons, always reaching double figures in wins and posting a cumulative WAR (wins above replacement) of 48.3 according to Baseball Reference. He is fifth in WAR in that 12-year period behind Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia, Johan Santana and Roy Oswalt.